Comments on: Route to Christmas: Day 8 2020

By: Terje Wiig Mathisen

Terje Wiig Mathisen — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 13:09:15 +0000

Regarding the path route being too slow: With lots of experience from Scandinavian terrain, I would look at this map and immediately envision an area with a very thin cover of sod over a rocky base, with mostly fir trees possibly with planted spruce in the flatter sections. Paths in such areas tend to be relatively slow due to rocks & roots as well as lots of micro ups & downs and small bends. In an actual race you would of course know all this by the time you got to this leg!

By: Jan Kocbach

Jan Kocbach — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:51:18 +0000

Thanks for your comments, Kristof & Martin.
– About the around-route, looked at all runners running around (there were several others), and the first part to the path seems to be simply too slow for that route to be the fastest for a good orienteer. For an orienteer with poor technical skills, running around could be faster
– With regards to Susen’s route, there are also other runners running there, and they generally lose time in this first part. In particular, going where Sara runs is faster than going more straight first (as many runners do), this is a very clear result from the analysis.

But of course, in general you use a combination of GPS-data and discussion with athletes to identify which route you think is the best, and even then you cannot speak with full confidence. In this particular case I think the data is quite conclusive that Hagström’s route is faster, and that’s why I wrote it with some confidence. Often my analyses are more open with more of a “probably” in there, but this time there were several runners on each choice, and you could understand where they lost time based on the combination of map and pace on different segments and it all seems quite logical.

However, I would of course be thankful if readers would use some time to make their own thorough analysis based on the data available and post it in the comments, that would definitely add a lot to the Route to Christmas series. So there is your challenge :-)

By: o-zeugs

o-zeugs — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:34:36 +0000

The same with Susens route. It looks fast but she looses time in the first part. How much faster would Sara run on this one?. Was it bad luck that the runnability along these marshes was not as good? Was it bad luck fewer choose this route thus less paths? Was she starting early? Was Sara running alone? Did Susen invest time into later routechoices? Would other runners be faster if executing their own route flawless?The shear empirical definition of "the fastest/best route" might sometimes lead to false conclusions.

By: Kristof Gyorffy

Kristof Gyorffy — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 14:14:40 +0000

Isn’t it worth for someone who is really fast on the path to take the very left option? I mean it is a really safe option with basically no chance to make a miss, and if one can run on the path with 4:00-4:20 min/km in the 75% of the leg, then it’s not far from the time of Hagström. Axelsson’s time was around 100 sec slower according to the analysis, with a speed around 5:45-5:50. If this part of the route is around 1500 m long, then an elite runner could save up to 2-2.5 minutes compared to Axelsson I guess. Which still more than Hagström’s time, but it could have been a better option for a strong runner like Bjessmo.